i'd have to disagree with you 100% on this one. you claim that slapping on ex. naruto headband and saying you're cosplaying ninja number 5001 is not cosplay but it is. i think along the way people have forgotten the grass roots of what cosplay really is, its not about the fancy dress or how hard you worked on it. its about feeling connected to the character or style you love most and showing how you interprete it to other people.

i can garentee anyone here and bet them a billion dollars that no matter what clothing style you find, or can come up with, i can find it in an anime. thats the beauty of it. theres so much variety whether its officer jenny from pokemon to naruto to gundam to zombie loan. anime, manga, pictures in general are a creative art thought up by someone to express a visual idea and to encapsolate that idea and claim that if its not this, then there is no other, is narrowminded and discriminatory against the very thing you're trying to do.

it would be no different then me ridiculing a naruto cosplay because his hair isn't perfect, or his cloths are one shade off therefor he must not be a cosplayer.

so in the end i reiterate, what is cosplay? because its not fancy dress or copying exactly what a character is, its the connection to that character.

@kingselite - you missed the point of my example completely. And I have a feeling that if you asked a group of people at a con if wearing a naruto headband with no other parts of a cosplay that make it look like it came from the anime (i.e. jeans and a tshirt)= cosplay, I'm willing to bet a large number would say, not really. Namely because you don't see ANY ninjas running around in jeans and a tshirt. You might find someone running around in jeans and a hoodie in say... Fruits Basket, but you won't see a Fruits Basket character wearing a naruto headband. So your argument there is kind of moot.

Its the same way if someone saw a person running around wearing just jeans, tshirt, and a pair of goggles, they'd probably think "goggles and jeans/tshirt = / = steampunk." I'm not saying everyone will think that way, but I'm willing a lot of people might. The point I was making had nothing to do with "what makes a cosplay" or "what is cosplay", I was merely pointing out that "spats, bracers, brass buttons, trim, etc" actually do help make a steampunk, well, steampunk.

If a person wants to say that they're "random ninja 78732" then cool, let them. I'm just saying that the way your cosplay is judged by others, meaning the difference between whether people just walk past you or whether they pull out their camera to take a photo, is based on the amount of effort that one puts into their costume, whether they make all of it, some of it, or just thrift it together. So if a person wants to get the attention that so many people (cosplayers) want (i.e. getting photos, compliments, whatever) you have to put at least some effort into what you're doing whether its creating or searching the stores / web for that perfect component that completes the outfit.

edit: tl;dr - goggles alone do not make something steampunk in the same way that just a headband alone does not make you naruto / sasuke / sakura, etc. If you want to claim that you are so-and-so, put effort into what you do.

I hate Twilight. I loathe it. I wish it would be stricken from public record and readers' memories everywhere. If I saw a Twilight cosplayer at an anime convention, I might be inclined to berate that person for not seeing what I see: a poorly written, Mary-Sue-loving bastardization of romantic writing. What I would not do is berate that person for expressing their particular fandom through costume. In fact, if it were a good costume, I'd congratulate them for their skillz.

That's still harassment. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't give you the right to berate them. This kind of behavior at cons always makes me uncomfortable because that's how the incident at Motaku where an Edward cosplayer was assaulted started.

That's still harassment. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't give you the right to berate them. This kind of behavior at cons always makes me uncomfortable because that's how the incident at Motaku where an Edward cosplayer was assaulted started.

This. Honestly, unless I'm asked for my opinion on the subject I'd just hold your tongue and walk away. Hating something someone else loves and making them feel bad by berating them for it would makes me a jerk.
I don't like Twilight either but a few of my friends do. Their taste in literature aside, we have tons in common and I respect their opinions and they respect mine.
It's not so hard to get along as long as people have common courtesy to each other. ^_^

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now you're playing techicallities here. if you want to go as far as to say no one in naruto is wearing jeans then you'd only be half correct as me saying many naruto characters wear jeans which would be half correct. to go into as little detail as possible about this, look at the style of pants most characters wear especially in the crotch region. as you will notice it is a bifold design overlapping a zipper on almost all pants seen in the series. this design was not used in real life until the invention of jeans which is still used in all jean pants and shorts. now you car argue they are cargo pants, but cargo pants where origionally of military design based on the jean pant but made with more pockets and wasn't until it became more popular that it was made out of a thinner material.

now before you can even begin to argue steampunk, lets put it in relation to naruto. first ever appearence of naruto what was he wearing instead of a head band? goggles, but goggles are a common focal point of steampunk design.

naruto movie 1: steampunk design used in train and airship along with parts of the bad guys clothing design

naruto movie 2: again with the steampunk like design with ships and armor

naruto movie 3: again ships and some carages look steam punk like in design.

shippudden movie 3: weaponry located on both sides where konoha and the sand are about to start war.

its such a wide genre of style to cover.

in response to your tl;dr: if i say its steampunk cause i like the way it looks on me and i think its a cool style, then its steampunk because quite frankly, if anyone tell you different, thier opinion doesn't matter. if i want to believe i'm dressing steampunk by just having on goggles or dressing naruto by just having a headband thats my choice and its not your place to tell me different.

I'm going to step back from the can of worms that I inadvertently opened up by stating an opinion other than the norm to avoid any drama and/or personal attacks from flaring up, like they're starting to.

I agree it's best to just close this thread and move-on. The longer it continues the more drama will unfold.

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"This is your job. You want a clear conscience, go start a charity. But if you want your own photography business, and your cosplayer boss says you gotta go out there and take a photo-shoot, go out there, take it, come back to work, and say "DO YOU NEED ME TO DO IT AGAIN?!!"

Then why ignore that Steampunk has featured in several notable anime series and films by several major animation studios. You can't ignore a point one second and then use it the next.

By your logic now Steampunk has just as much right to be at an anime event as lolita.

Completely agree.

I mean, what, was I really the only person who played Final Fantasy IX ? That game was hella Steampunk, before Steampunk was all that popular. Those airships were pretty sweet.

Not to mention things like Kuroshitsuji and Steamboy (*COUGH* *COUGH* *HACK*).

Someone doing a Ciel Phantomhive cosplay could go to a "Steampunk" convention and probably receive a lot of compliments - and I don't think people would be nasty about it just because it was "from an anime" (or manga).

Also, try looking up "Steampanku", "Ricepunk" (mildly-offensive sounding, but I didn't name it), or "Victoriental".

this thread should be closed under the grounds of it not being useful...at all...the OP pretty much left out from this thread and there's no point in discussing something that folks aren't going to change their minds about...just my opinion though.

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I love seeing EVERYTHING at cons! At Anime North we have whole Steampunk fashion shows and a security gaurd who dresses as a Klingon! As for Twilight at cons, I probably wouldn't notice it (its only normal clothes) and it really isn't much different then seeing Harry Potter at anime cons (though Harry Potter does have games out)

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I cosplayed Thane Krios and have a fondness for projects that are way over my head.